For businesses large and small, relying on a cloud-based collaboration and productivity suite such as Microsoft Office 365 is becoming the norm. Enhancing productivity in your organisation is vital to get ahead in 2017 - and using Office 365 can help, if it's used right...

Microsoft announces Windows 8 Release Preview to launch in June

Final pre-release build indicates that Windows 8 is on target for autumn release

Microsoft has announced that a Release Preview of its Windows 8 operating system will be available in the first week of June.

The news means that Windows 8 is nearing code completion, as the Release Preview is likely to be the final pre-release build before the full version is released to manufacturing.

However, Microsoft has so far given little away about what changes will be seen in the Release Preview.

The new version was revealed by Microsoft's Building Windows 8 Twitter feed with an image of Windows President Steven Sinofsky announcing it at a Windows 8 Dev Days event in Japan (pictured above).

Windows 8 is still tipped to be delivered later this year, with sometime in October widely expected to be when the next generation version of Windows finally sees the light of day.

Last week, Microsoft detailed the versions of Windows 8 that will be available at release, including Windows 8 and Windows 8 Pro for x86 platforms, Windows RT for ARM-based systems such as tablets, and Windows 8 Enterprise for large organisations.